Attendance topped 18,000 this summer, at the Beatrice Big Blue Water Park

BEATRICE – The Big Blue Water Park had a good summer season in Beatrice, with attendance up marginally from the year before.
"Pretty good....we need to look at some things. We need to repair a slide that had a little damage to it....settling and that. We had a pretty good year."

City of Beatrice Public Properties Director Mark Pethoud said total attendance at the park was 18,523…..just above last season’s figure of 18,233. The highest one-season attendance ever was about 21,000…about eight years ago.

"We had a lot of daily traffic. Season passes were about normal. We saw about 165 family passes and that's usually between 155 to 160."

There are area pools and water parks competing for swimmers during summer.  "Fairbury's got a new pool which they did about a couple, three years ago...and they have a lazy river. You get some smaller ones, where there's not as many people at. Sometimes on daily attendance we averaged about 300 people a day...that's a lot of people. Sometimes, the families like to go to those smaller parks where there's not as many people."

The Big Blue Water Park is now about 23 years old. Pethoud says most facilities have a lifespan of about 30 years. He expects city officials will continue to discuss potential upgrades, or a new water park in the future. The city owns property directly east of the current water park, at 12th and Scott.

Meanwhile, Pethoud says the city has finally received that control module that operates the splash pad at Sertoma-Astro Park. It will be installed before the warm weather ends, replacing one that malfunctioned early in the year.

Families and their kids still have been able to use the splash pad, after public properties installed a timer allowing the water to be turned on manually for set periods.